Who is the best baseball player of all time?

Barry Bonds, accompanied by his many other skills, is the greatest hitter of all time

Question: Who is the best baseball player of all time?
Position‹3 of 5›: Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player ever
Argument‹2 of 2: Barry Bonds, accompanied by his many other skills, is the greatest hitter of all time

Barry Bonds outperformed all other hitters in the history of baseball and catapulted his individual statistics into what seems to be an unbeatable stratosphere.

The argument

Barry Bonds did not simply break Hank Aaron's all-time record for home runs - he did it at the end of an incredibly illustrious career that saw him achieve numbers and batting percentages never seen before in the 120+ years of the game. Bonds gained 7 National League MVPs and 14 all-star bids, but his work as an elite defender in the 1990's cannot be overlooked: he earned 8 Golden Glove Awards from 1990 to 1998, also earning Silver Slugger Awards during 7 of those seasons. Even before his historic home run performances in the 2000's, Bonds was at the top of the MLB in both hitting and fielding, three of his NL MVPs coming in this era. However, his batting numbers skyrocketed in the 2001 season, crushing a record 73 home runs in that season and following up in 2002 with.370 batting average,.582 on-base percentage, and.799 slugging percentage - all the best in the MLB. Bonds recorded the three best offensive seasons of all time, his OPS+ measuring 268 in 2002, 263 in 2004, and 259 in 2001. During the same period, he also achieved the best OBP, SLG%, and OPS in the entire league, four seasons in a row. His preposterous batting numbers, on top of his historical virtuosity on both offense and defense, make Barry Bonds the greatest baseball player of all time.

Premises

[P1]Bonds broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record at the end of a career filled with unprecedented numbers—7 NL MVPs, 14 all-star bids, and elite defence with 8 Gold Gloves and 7 Silver Sluggers from 1990–1998. [P2] His batting peaked historically, with a record 73 home runs in 2001 and the three best offensive seasons ever measured (OPS+ of 268, 263 and 259), leading the league in on-base, slugging and OPS for four straight years. [C] Because he combined record-shattering hitting with all-round virtuosity on offence and defence, Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player ever.

Counter-arguments

Barry Bonds was, in fact, a top-performing baseball player in the '80s and '90s, but if his career stopped before the turn of the 21st Century, he would not be in the GOAT conversation today. Setting aside the incongruous argument that simply hitting home runs equates to all-time excellence, Bonds' career is forever marred by his rampant use of PED's in the early 2000's, which is, conveniently, when his home run numbers reached too-good-to-believe highs. Without his participation in and historical benefit from steroids, Bonds would be another mid-tier, MVP-caliber player whose game began to die out in the latter half of his career, which is what we see with other baseball players time and time again. The argument that he is the greatest because of his record-breaking batting numbers (all coming in the height of his PED use) is, therefore, invalid.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Bonds' defense was not nearly on the same level of his offense in terms of historical significance, and the shadows covering the latter half of his career completely invalidate this argument of perceived greatness. [Rejecting P3] Bonds did not achieve those numbers on his own, so he is not the greatest of all time.

Framing

Historically phenomenal and record-breaking batting statistics coupled with timelessly brilliant defensive prowess creates all-time greatness, and no one reached this mark more profoundly than Barry Bonds. His numbers will forever stand in the record books as some of the most astronomical feats of human skill and athleticism throughout our history, and his name is etched permanently among the all-time baseball greats.